The carefree genius of Cecile Licad

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The world-class pianist brings Chopin, Saint-Saëns, and her fearless spirit back to Manila and beyond

“So are your hands insured?” we asked. Cecile Licad, clad in white and black, bedecked with Cartier jewelry and framed with stark white glasses, answered with a laugh: “No, they’re not.”

We laughed with her. “Why not?” we pressed.

“They’re just not!” she said, laughing again.

It is the silliness of it. This genius, who by all rights should insure her hands, hands that have created music celebrated by audiences from around the globe, simply shrugs it off. Coffee masters insure their tongues. Athletes, their legs. But Cecile, the pianist’s pianist, waves away the thought. It is perhaps this carefree attitude, this careless genius, that makes Cecile Licad who she is.

When asked what happens if something goes wrong onstage, a sudden pain in her hands, or an unexpected technical glitch, she leaned forward. “Actually, during those times, when something unexpected happens, when my hands become painful or stiff, during adversity, those are the times when my playing, my music… people say it comes out the best. It’s that difficulty, adversity, that makes the music unique. My own, you know?”

Cecile has been living that credo since she first dazzled Manila at age eight under the baton of National Artist Antonino Buenaventura, who once declared: “A talent like hers comes only once in 100 years.” Three years later, she stunned the world by becoming the first Filipina to win the coveted Leventritt Gold Medal in 1981, joining the ranks of legends Van Cliburn and Gary Graffman. That triumph launched her international career, leading to acclaimed recordings with the London Philharmonic under André Previn, including Chopin’s ‘Concerto No. 2,’ which earned her the Grand Prix du Disque from the Chopin Society of Warsaw.

Over the decades, she has been recognized not only abroad but also at home, receiving the Presidential Medal of Merit in 1991, the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining in Music in 1994, and the Pamana ng Pilipino Award in 2014. Critics remain in awe. As the New York Classical Review noted after her Carnegie Hall recital last year, her playing is “less about pianistic display than about ideas and meaning.”

This Sept.24, 2025, at 6:30 p.m., Cecil returns to Manila for a landmark performance at the Metropolitan Theater with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) under Maestro Grzegorz Nowak. Billed as “The Pianist’s Pianist” and presented by Rustan’s, the concert is a fundraiser for the PPO and a tribute to the late cultural patron Zenaida “Nedy” Tantoco.

The program includes Chopin’s “Piano Concerto No. 2,” Saint-Saëns’ “Piano Concerto No. 2,” Mozart’s “Magic Flute” Overture, and Rossini’s “L’italiana in Algeri” Overture.

And then, as she often does, she will take her music far beyond the capital. Cecil’s outreach concerts will bring her to the Cordillera Convention Hall in Baguio (Sept. 27), the Pinto Art Museum in Antipolo (Sept. 28), the Miranila Heritage House in Quezon City (Oct. 1), Sta. Ana Parish in Iloilo (Oct. 6), the UPV Museum in Iloilo (Oct. 7), and the ECrown Hotel Ballroom in Virac, Catanduanes (Oct. 11).

Through all the accolades, Cecil remains strikingly unpretentious. In our conversation, she spoke as freely about food—her love for paksiw and her intermittent fasting regimen—as she did about Chopin and Saint-Saëns. She talked about Nedy’s insistence that she always keep performing, about the discipline of playing through distractions, about music not as perfection but as risk.

“I focus more on the human side,” she said. “If I make a mistake, that might even be better. Some people are just focused on playing every note, but then it doesn’t mean anything. I go more for taking risks.”

It is perhaps that daring, an edge not born of careful calculation but of instinct, that keeps audiences leaning forward, waiting, listening. The pianist’s pianist, unbothered by insurance papers or flawless fingers, carries on.

In every note, Cecile Licad reminds us: greatness lies not in control, but in surrender to the music.